Ensign Maria Alvarez - Hollow-deck

[Max]

(( USS Arrow, Deck 3, Chief Engineer’s Office ))

Alvarez:  ... I strongly suggest you do, and save the ship.

Maria came to the end of her presentation and felt herself hanging on who would speak next.  She'd been speaking for a while, so the momentary space of who would go first felt plain odd.

Ander: It’s definitely within the realms of possibility. My concern is the power draw, even with the increased efficiency emitters and photonic scattering panels I think we’d still need to restrict the power draw across the ship when the holodeck was in use.

Maria breathed, and smiled.  There was no out-and-out rejection of the desire for a holodeck, nor its technical feasibility.  Considering the amount of work she'd put into it, such a refusal would have been pretty rough.  She expected there'd be tweaks to the idea, some deletions, some additions - that was all fine, so long as it got people thinking.  "Realm of possibility" was a solid answer.

Caden: We’d have to get them first.

Ander: Yeah, that’d be number one on the to-do list.

Shayne: Ensigns, your thoughts?

Maria chimed in first regarding the power restriction.  It was definitely the biggest problem of the bunch after space (which she'd largely solved), so it didn't come as a surprise that was where the worry was focused.  Especially considering the liability of EPS conduits to misbehave and create all kinds of problems, it was a totally natural item to address.  Besides, she wasn't as familiar with the ship as either of the engineers were.

Alvarez: It's not exactly ideal to restrict power to the wider ship, but letting the computer dynamically manage power flow like that is pretty common practice.

Ander: I’m willing to help in any way I can, it’s going to be a mammoth task though to procure the bits we’ll need.

Caden: It’s plausible, so I don’t see why not.

Shayne: Maybe we don’t need to limit power conception. If we place a magnetic plasma fork in say… section 41J, we might be able to run this thing reliably.

Maria's interest piqued - apparently she even had Shayne in on coming up with ideas how to solve the technical problems.  That was a very good sign indeed.  She was almost a little surprised, given the difficult nature of their relationship.

Shayne: Right here- put a direct EPS channel between the bleed and the holodeck computer, and install a modulator to help protect against the power surge. It might not be the most reliable thing, but it would mean less rationing of power, at least.

Caden: If we’re using the cargo bay in deck four, we could knock down some of those walls and increase the size of it slightly to add some things for the holodeck and still use some of those spaces for additional cargo.

Maria considered the proposals for a moment, and opted to take them one at a time.

Alvarez: The cap's idea is a good one.  We'd have a dedicated tap, and the only systems appreciably affected would be shields - which don't run most of the time anyway.  It might be smart to add in a circuit-breaker to shut off the holodeck when shields go up.  Honestly something most holodecks should probably have anyway...

She paused, humming softly as she gave Caden's idea some thought.

Alvarez: It's definitely possible to expand into cargo bay two, but we'd lose some flexibility as to what cargo we can store down there.  A lot of items loaded by shuttlebay get put down there....  It might be ambitious, but maybe we could build it with variable geometry - like my grandmother's slide-out dining table.  Need the cargo space?  Slide that wall in.  Have a big group going in?  Slide it out.  :: She looked to Ander for confirmation - she'd come up with the thought on the spot. :: Ander?

Ander: Response

All eyes went to Shayne as he mulled it over.  Maria was optimistic - perhaps even nervously so.  She relished the idea of managing a project of this scope and the prospect of sourcing the materials it would require.  And none of that was saying anything about how nice it would be to have a holodeck aboard - no more painfully dull nights trying to get into a book she didn't really care for.  It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but then they didn't need to use it, did they?

Shayne: Well, if we’re doing this, we may as well do it properly, no?

Caden: ….and safely. :: Hayley added. ::

Alvarez: :: She smiled. :: Go big or go home, as they say.

Ander/Shayne/Caden: Response

Maria knew the timetable and cost to the ship would be questions, and she'd come prepared.  The answer for part of it was easy, but some of it was still a little unknown.  Nothing they'd discussed had brought up an unknown - simply just decisions to be made around how to engineer the thing.  Those were good questions.

Alvarez: We could ask the base crews to install the channel you suggested right now.  They'll be digging around in that section soon anyway, so it shouldn't affect the repair time table.  It won't have any effect until we have everything else installed.

Ander/Shayne/Caden: Response

Alvarez: As for the rest of the parts - they'll take a significant amount of time to source.  Some of them will just require special requisition, but some we might need to find outside our usual supply chains - or even build ourselves.  Fortunately, there's lots of trade activity of all sorts in the area, particularly with the Ferengi Alliance not too far away.  I'm confident we'll find everything without trading away anything too valuable.

Ander/Shayne/Caden: Response

She could feel it was coming to the final moment.  No doubt more tweaks would be made, flaws discovered and fixed, but in general, the idea remained the same.  They could build a holodeck - would they?  She indicated she needed the word to be given if they were to proceed.

Alvarez: I can start working on it as soon as you give the word, assuming you'd like to.

Ander/Shayne/Caden: Response

Tag/TBC…

Ensign Maria Alvarez

Ops Officer, USS Arrow

A239710MA0

Wiki Operator